


when we all fall asleep where do we go

by stoprobbers



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Idiots in Love, Pre-Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23094751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stoprobbers/pseuds/stoprobbers
Summary: She prefers the dim haze that filters through Jonathan’s makeshift curtains. She rests her cheek on his chest and listens to the steady thump of his heart, feels the sweat cooling on his skin and hers.They drift off to sleep tangled together, in a still and quiet house.And under the town, something is stirring.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	when we all fall asleep where do we go

There’s less light in his room which is just one of the reasons she likes it.

Neither of them like shadows much at night. When she was younger Nancy would watch the light filter through the neighborhood trees and onto her bedroom walls and write stories about the landscapes they the painted. Trapped princesses and knights who came to save them, or excavating archeologists falling in love. She’d stay up half the night spinning yarns in her head and in the morning her mother would ask her why she was so tired.

The shadows don’t look like landscapes, not anymore. There’s life in their limbs, and menace in their movements.

Her mother still asks her why she’s so tired.

She prefers the dim haze that filters through Jonathan’s makeshift curtains. She rests her cheek on his chest and listens to the steady thump of his heart, feels the sweat cooling on his skin and hers.

They drift off to sleep tangled together, in a still and quiet house. 

And under the town, something is stirring.

+++

Spring is slow to thaw and she hates it. She wants the heat, nearly craves it; after the nightmare in November it feels like safety.

She compensates by stealing Jonathan’s sweaters when he gets up to pee. Squirrels them away in her overnight bag, and puts on an innocent expression as he digs through the pile of laundry in the corner of his room.

“Have you seen my striped sweater?” he asks, tossing a fuzzy pile of goldenrod over his shoulder. She makes a mental note to grab that one next.

“Which one? Half of your sweaters are striped.” It’s a non-answer; accurate, but not what he’s asking. A way to get around an outright lie.

“The one I wore on Monday,” he throws another sweater, charcoal gray and waffled, behind him and it nearly hits her in the face. She keeps her legs under the covers but nudges it onto the floor next to his bed.

“Gross. Do your laundry.”

“I _do_ do my laundry, you can wear sweaters more than once.”

Before she can reply he sighs, straightens, and grabs the white knit from the back of his chair, pulls it on over his gray undershirt.

She knows he’ll pair it with his black denim jacket because that’s what it looks best with and while he might protest if called on it, he’s got a style he cares about. She remembers walking into the funeral home and seeing him in the soft light, same moth-eaten sweater and same dark denim. She knew she was taking a risk, taking a plunge finding him there. She had no idea just how far down the rabbit hole it would lead them.

He turns, raises his eyebrows at her and breaks her train of thought. Through the wall she can hear his mother’s bathroom door close, and in the ceiling the pipes squeak as the shower turns on.

“Staying for breakfast today?”

She looks down at herself, still half under his covers and wearing the same shirt she peeled off him last night, after she climbed through his window.

“No,” she says softly, gives him a small grin. “You know, if you want me to get gone you can just say it.”

He waits until she climbs out of his bed, catches her wrist as she rounds the foot of it to the pile of her own discarded clothing.

“I never want you to get gone,” his voice is tender, rough. It makes heat rise inside her, brings a flush to her cheeks.

But the chill settles back in her bones as she walks home, so she pulls on his sweater and avoids her mother’s questions about the too-large fit and when she he sees her in the hallway the face he pulls makes her laugh.

“Thief,” he says, more declaration than accusation as he plucks at the sleeve.

“I don’t steal, I just borrow,” she argues, schooling innocence onto her features. “I always give them back.”

That’s not strictly true. There is one sweater that still lives in the back corner of her closet, deep blue with white stripes, that has never emerged and never been washed. It still smells a little like dead leaves and fireplace smoke, and if you know where to look you’ll find stains of an odd color from a strange substance that doesn’t exist in their universe.

Maybe.

Probably.

She hopes.

She doesn’t mention it and neither does he, even when she’s left it carelessly on the floor and has to kick it back into its hiding spot as he enters her bedroom to do homework and neck on a Wednesday afternoon. She pulls it on when she wakes up alone from nightmares, sweat cooling on goose-pimpled skin, limbs trembling, eyes unfocused. If he’s not there beside her it will do.

He knocks his shoulder into hers and doesn’t mention any sweater at all as they walk to English class.

+++

By spring break there are mild days and crisp nights, soothing the tension in her muscles even though it doesn’t stop the nagging thoughts in the back of her mind.

They drive to a quiet spot near the quarry and spread sleeping bags out in front of his car. She laughs as he zips them together into a bigger tube, laughs harder when he pulls her down inside of it and seals it tight around them. Tangles her fingers in his hair and lets him swallow her laughter, her joy, lets herself swallow his.

It’s a little tight and a little cold but they manage and she can’t deny how good it feels to let the chilly April air wash over her flushed cheeks after.

She tucks her head into the crook of his neck, letting her nose drift along his jawline as they catch their breath. Follows his gaze through the still-sparse treetops to the moon and stars above. She wonders what’s up there.

Jonathan shifts to hold her a little tighter and the debris beneath them crunches against the nylon. She wonders what’s down there, too.

“What?” he wonders and she looks up at him in surprise. “You got tense.”

“It’s nothing,” she tries to brush it off, but he just waits. “I was just thinking about the… tunnels.”

He doesn’t speak but she feels his jaw clench.

“Do you remember the way it—the Mind Flayer, when it got out of Will, the way it burst out the window?” There is dread in the pit of her stomach from even bringing it up. It’s been a while since they’ve talked about it so frankly.

“Of course,” he murmurs, and sounds distracted.

“I just wonder if they’re really empty,” she ventures, even as she hates every syllable. “If it really died.”

To speak the words is to give them life, she thinks. She’s jinxed them.

“Of course it didn’t,” Jonathan sighs, bumps his chin against her forehead as he tries to look at her. “I don’t think it’s ever really going to die.”

“So what, it’s just lying in wait?”

“I don’t know.” He sighs again, sounding frustrated.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—“

“No, no, it’s not—that’s not it.” He shifts so they’re on their sides, looking at each other. She slides her knee between his, pushing the pile of their discarded clothes further down the sleeping bag. “I don’t know, and I never stop thinking about it, like you don’t stop thinking about it, and I hate it because I’d much rather think about having sex with my girlfriend right now.”

He’s rarely so frank about it and it makes her smile, blush, duck her head.

“Yeah, that’s a much better train of thought.”

“And yet here we are, thinking about monsters lurking in the shadows.”

“Under the town, actually,” she corrects and gets a fond shake of his head for it.

“With our luck it’s probably in the water.”

She doesn’t stifle her snort.

“Well,” he offers, “I can try to take your mind off it?”

Her smile blossoms from what feels like the tips of her toes. “Show me what you got, Byers.”

He laughs at that, rolls on top of her and braces his elbows on either side of her head. 

“Hold onto your hat, Wheeler.”

+++

“Let’s go to the mall,” Nancy says when they’re driving home from school on a Friday, half out of boredom and half just to see the look on Jonathan’s face. He doesn’t disappoint, lips twisting into a petulant grimace.

“Ugh, Nancy, _why_?”

“Because it’s Friday and I want to do something other than just sit in your bedroom all afternoon until your mom comes home and you help her make dinner.”

She looks at her nails as she says it, trying to play it off as more of a joke than it really is, but out of the corner of her eye she sees his grimace lose is playfulness, his skin go a shade paler. Something like guilt gnaws at her but she shoves it out of the way.

“That’s not—there are other things we could do, you know. We don’t have to just sit around.”

“We did that this morning. I left teeth marks in your pillow.”

His brow furrows, thoughtful. “Is that a bad thing? It didn’t seem like a bad thing at the time. You seemed to enjoy it a lot, actually.”

“I did,” she lays a hand on his knee, “But I think it’s time for a change of scenery.”

“So you want to look at half the population of Hawkins making out by the indoor fountain?”

“I just want to walk around. There’s all kinds of things there. There’s a _Sam Goody_.” She squeezes his knee for emphasis, trying to entice him with the promise of tapes.

“I’m fine with American Sound,” he sniffs, glancing out the window like his favorite record store might be watching. She doesn’t miss the way his hands tighten on the wheel.

“Or we could see a movie, or get ice cream.”

“There’s ice cream at my house.”

“And I wouldn’t mind looking at some clothes, I need a work wardrobe for our internship, you know,” she presses on, batting her eyelashes at him even though he’s not looking at her. “I have to look professional.”

His hands tighten again, knuckles going white, for a moment, then red as blood floods back into them. His throat works and he keeps his eyes carefully trained out the windshield.

“It’s… not a great time for me to be shopping,” he says carefully. “Things at the store have been slow and we’ve all been doing our part. I don’t really have extra spending money right now.”

“Oh you don’t have to buy me anything, my mom gave me some money for work clothes,” she waves a hand, dismissing his fears, missing the way his jaw clenches. “Just tell me if I look good in my new dresses.”

“You always looks good,” he murmurs, and this time he does glance over at her. She can’t read his expression, but he doesn’t look comfortable. “But you can get clothes anywhere—”

“There’s a Gap at the mall! There’s no Gap on Main Street.”

“There’s hardly anything on Main Street anymore.” The bitterness in his tone is unmistakable and she lets go of his leg, flops back onto the seat with a huff. He’s right, she knows he’s right – she’s seen the empty storefronts, the ‘For Lease’ signs – but that’s not her fault, is it? So she looks out the window, silent, until he heaves another sigh. “Okay. Fine. Can we just swing by the house so I can leave a note? I don’t want Mom to get home and be worried.”

They have to park a ten-minute walk from the doors the lots are so crowded, and she holds tight to his hand as they enter the massive atrium, filled to the brim with people. Children run screaming past them, and she spots three couples she didn’t know were couples from school perched on the fountain, fused at the lips.

“Huh,” she says, “I didn’t know Andy and Liz were a thing.”

“Told you,” Jonathan shakes his head. “Everyone just comes here to make out.”

She elbows him, sticking the tip of her tongue out between her teeth to tease him. “Wanna join in?”

“No thank you,” he replies primly, and pulls her toward the Sam Goody.

They walk the halls, pulling each other into stores as they please. Jonathan doesn’t complain when she tries on half a dozen dresses at the Gap and only buys one, just stands patiently by the dressing room and tells her she looks beautiful in all of them. Unhelpful, as usual.

She has to drag him to the food court, pointing at her stomach to prove how hungry she is. She gets one scoop of Rocky Road and kisses his cheek when he insists on paying for it, pulling a couple crumpled dollar bills out of his wallet and handing them to the vaguely familiar girl behind the counter of Scoops Ahoy. She’s lost in her thoughts trying to place her when he pulls her away.

“Don’t say I never buy you anything,” he grumbles and she thinks it sounds good-natured but she can’t quite tell. There’s an edge of something underneath that _really_ makes her want to roll her eyes, but she doesn’t want to fight at the mall so she ignores it.

“Thank you,” she says instead. “It’s delicious.”

“Can I try it?” He doesn’t wait for her permission, just leans it and takes a lick of her cone. She’s about to admonish him but when he pulls back he’s got chocolate on the tip of his nose and she laughs as he wipes it off with exaggerated chagrin. Is about to make a snide remark when he does something unusual, throws his arm around her shoulders and tucks her into his side. It makes the center of her chest go warm and soft.

“I know this isn’t your idea of a fun date night but thanks for coming with me,” she says as she tips her head into the crook of his shoulder.

“It’s not that it’s terrible in and of itself,” he allows. “I just wish people would see how much this place is sucking the life out of Hawkins. And for what, you know? So they can come here and do the same things, buy the same things, dress the same way? In awful fluorescent lighting? _No one_ looks good in fluorescent lighting.”

“Ah, so the truth comes out,” she laughs, steering him towards a men’s clothing store. “Starcourt offends your photographic sensibilities, and so it must go.”

“No!” he rolls his eyes and shoves her away from him a step. “It’s just adding insult to injury that it’s so ugly.”

“Sure, sure,” she reaches out and grabs his hand, pulling him toward the entryway. “Come on.”

“Why are we going in here?” he stops outside, refuses to budge. “This is men’s clothes.”

“Yeah, you need an internship wardrobe too.”

“I’ve got work shirts, nice pants, I’m fine.” She gives another tug but he stands firm. “Nance, stop it. I told you, I don’t need it and anyway I can’t afford it.”

“It’s a present, from me,” she makes her eyes big, looks up at him as guilelessly as she can manage. “For our… six month anniversary.”

His eyes go a little hazy as he does the math in his head, and when the slightly pleased smile starts to spread over his face he covers it with a hand.

“You made that up just now.”

“But I’m right, aren’t I. It’s been six months.”

“Give or take.” He still doesn’t move. “I don’t need anything.”

“A tie, at least,” she has to resist the urge to stomp her foot. “Just let me buy you a tie. So you look _really_ professional.”

A war of emotions plays across his face; irritation and affection and pride and consternation and half a dozen other things she can’t quite name. She bites her tongue to keep from needling him further, knowing if she just gives him a minute he’ll relent, but still she wonders why this kind of thing has to be such a _chore_ all the time. Why he can’t just be a little selfish for once and know the world won’t end because of it.

“Fine,” he gives in.

In the end she chooses something coppery-pink with little dots on it, a warm color that sets off his skin even though he is not interested in _any_ of her compliments. The salesman places it neatly into a box and she pointedly ignores the way Jonathan turns away when she goes to pay.

+++

“You’re quiet tonight.”

She is. She’s near silent, save the grinding of her teeth, for she is stewing. She is _fuming_. She is fantasizing about slamming a copy of the Indianapolis Star onto the desk in front of Fucking Bruce, a blazing headline and her byline on the front page.

Just as soon as she can figure out what that headline is.

Across the table, a plate of cooling fries between them, Jonathan is waiting for a response. She remembers too slowly, reacts with too much delay, and when she manages to offer a one-shoulder shrug, carefully casual, it’s already too late. His eyes are dancing.

“Plotting your revenge?”

She drops the posturing, lets her shoulders slump and reaches for a fry. “That obvious?”

“Honestly, I’ve been waiting to see if steam really can come out someone’s ears. I’ve only ever seen it in cartoons, but, to be fair, that’s also the only place I ever saw monsters before.”

Her chuckle is humorless, muffled by her chewing. She wishes that could be her front-page story. Her editorial revenge. They have no idea just what lurks under this town but she does. She’s seen it. She’s _killed_ it.

“Nance…” His voice is full of warning and she gives him a real grin this time, resigned but warm, and a shake of her head.

“I know. I wouldn’t. I won’t.” She can’t help the face she pulls. “I’d love to see their faces, though.”

“I’m sure you would.”

There’s no bite behind his words; no sarcasm or exasperation or irritation. Just a statement of fact and a fondness that catches her right under the ribs in a way she should expect by now, but doesn’t. She forgets, sometimes, that he is different than other guys – Steve and the boys at their schools yes, but the men too, different than Bruce and Tom and the other assholes who treat her like little more than waitress or maid. She’s not just a girlfriend to him, or the sharer of his trauma; she’s something more.

“Can you imagine, though? If I told them about the things we saw, and killed? If I showed them your pictures?”

She’s his partner, and he hers. In something. Crime, perhaps.

Jonathan rolls his eyes, snags a fry for himself and leans back in the booth. “Bruce would probably just ask you how big its tits were.”

The Diet Coke goes straight up her nose, all carbonation and burn, and her choked chortle, hand flying up to her face, makes him laugh for real, loud and clear as a bell even as he’s passing her napkins.

She tells him to shut up, but there’s nothing behind it; she’s laughing too hard herself, cheeks pink with joy and embarrassment and he’s doubled over across the table from her, just losing it. It’s a feedback loop of laughter and before long they’re pulling stares from their fellow patrons, their waitress, the short order cooks behind the counter. They’re making a scene.

She doesn’t care.

Her cheeks hurt from something other than biting them for the first time all week, and Jonathan’s hair is a riot from pushing it out of the way as he covers his face, his laughter, his delight, and tries to wrestle himself under control.

“S-sorry,” he chokes out, sounding anything but, glancing up at her before looking away amid another shower of giggles. “You’ve still got—”

He holds out another napkin just as she feels the drip from her nose.

A year ago she would have handled this differently. Pouted and played hurt until Steve soothed her with compliments and distractions until she stopped being so petulant and let him kiss his apologies. She doesn’t want to pout, now. She’s back to plotting revenge. And while she knows she probably can’t get him to snort his drink out of his nose, she most certainly can get him to make some _really_ funny faces.

“Jonathan,” she says low, hooking her foot around his calf under the table. “Let’s go?”

It takes a couple more tries before her words break through his mirth, before he catches her drift, before his eyes widen and his hand flies to his back pocket for his wallet. They leave a small pile of bills on the table without asking for the check.

It's all the better that there are no other cars in the driveway when they get to his house, that it’s empty and dark; then she doesn’t have to make excuses or be polite, or sneak around the side to climb in his window. Instead she just pushes him down the hall and into his room, shoving him onto the bed with one hand and kicking the door shut behind her.

Maybe it’s the laughter still bubbling through her veins or all the stress that’s built up between her shoulder blades but the air feels different, charged even, as she peels his clothes off and forces his supine beneath her.

Maybe he feels it too, because he doesn’t resist, just lets her do as she wishes as she goes about making him make those funny faces. At least until she slides her fingertips up to that ticklish spot behind his knee and pokes. Hard.

“Oh!” he yelps and from there it’s a war, sheets like a knotty net around them and whatever is in the air crackling from her skin to his and back again, a circuit of heat and love and something more, something electric.

He pins her beneath him and she can see in his eyes that he feels it too.

“Oh ho,” he gloats, settling his hips between her thighs and his forehead against hers, and god, does she love the feeling of him there, lips brushing against hers when he speaks. “Got you now, Wheeler. What do you suppose I should—”

But however that sentence was going to end is lost when suddenly the warm glowing bedside light cuts out and the stereo goes with it. They both freeze, a second where fight and flight surge inside them and she’s not quite sure which she’s going to choose.

But to her surprise the dark isn’t threatening and the air is still buzzing and the heat between them is humid and intoxicating so she locks her ankles at the small of his back and brings a hand to his cheek to draw his attention back to her.

“Kiss me?” she whispers. He doesn’t hesitate and she swears she feels a shock as their lips meet, like static electricity, like they’re completing a circuit.

Somewhere deep in the back of her mind her practical brain is reminding her they’ll need to reset the alarm or they’ll be late for work in the morning; they’ll need to turn the stereo back on in case Mrs. Byers comes home and hears them; she’ll need to wake up extra early for a change of clothes lest Bruce and those other assholes catch on to the fact that she stayed over at her boyfriend’s the night before.

She tells her practical brain to shut up and digs her fingernails into Jonathan’s shoulder blades, relishes his hiss.

She doesn’t even notice when the power comes back on.

The air around them still feels odd, even as she teeters on the brink of sleep, wrapped up in his undershirt and his arms. He holds onto her tightly, mumbles something warm and affectionate into his hair just before his breathing deepens and he starts to lightly snore.

In her hindbrain, where she refuses to look, she knows something is stirring. She fits her fingertips into the notches of his ribs and listens to the steady thump of his heart and feels it ground her.

Let it come.

**Author's Note:**

> i started writing this in may 2019 and it, frankly, didn't change all that much (at least in intent/generally where i wanted it to go) after season 3 came out. so i finished it, once i worked a few post-season 3 things out of my system first.
> 
> title is very much from "bury a friend," which is a good song.


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